It's less than five days until the season's opener race through the streets of Las Vegas for the 2007 Champ Car World Series and the driver line-ups are anything but solidified.
Fourteen drivers are confirmed, with one only sure of his first three races. Champ Car has become chequebook racing, with at least half of the current drivers buying their rides.
MARIO DOMINGUEZ of Mexico, who just signed on (again) with Forsythe Racing for the first three races, admitted to spending his winter chasing sponsorship just so he could race in Champ Car this year. The manager of another driver not yet signed said that his driver was having problems raising the necessary two million dollars for a Champ Car ride.
This year Champ Car has seen team shuffling as well as more drivers circling the ever dwindling number of available rides. Mi-Jack Conquest Racing has become Conquest Racing with MIKE LANNIGAN of Mi-Jack leaving to join forces with Newman Haas Racing. ERIC BACHELART will continue with Conquest, but he is down to one car. RuSPORTS and Rocketsports Racing, each a two-car team, are down to one car each, and they have joined forces to become Rsports. And don't ask me how it's pronounced. PAUL STODDART of Australia brought his Minardi name with him from
Formula One and has partnered with KEITH WIGGINS of CTE. A new team joined the series - Pacific Coast Motorsports, which has moved up from the Atlantic Series. That makes at least one example of the Atlantic Series being a truly development series, not just for drivers but for teams.
Six of the signed drivers are Rookies, two of which are Americans - the only Yanks so far. The other countries represented are France with three drivers, Canada and England with two each, and one each from Australia, Mexico, Netherlands, Scotland, and Switzerland.
